


Smile For The Living

by inkvoices



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Community: be_compromised, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Laura Barton backstory hints, Multi, POV Laura Barton, Polyamory, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Canon Fix-It, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-30 20:02:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20102830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkvoices/pseuds/inkvoices
Summary: "It's okay, it's just me," Clint calls out as he pushes open the front door. "And a friend."His other arm is around Natasha's waist, supporting her as well as guiding her into the house. She looks like hell: drawn, shakey, shadows heavy beneath her eyes, flinching as Laura throws her arms around her and holds on tight.In which Clint brings Natasha home, but it's been a long five years and no one is really okay.  Yet.





	Smile For The Living

**Author's Note:**

  * For [QuietlyImplode](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuietlyImplode/gifts).

> **Author Note:** Title from _Life's for the Living_ by Passenger. Inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 6 Episode 3 _After Life_ written by Jane Espenson.
> 
> QuietlyImplode, apologies for any mistakes in this rather hasty pinch hit. I was intrigued by the idea of Natasha's return being like in Season 6 of Buffy and h/c, and I hope this is something along the lines of what you were looking for!

Laura reaches for her gun when she hears the sound of an engine coming up the road towards the house, the familiar grip comforting as she wraps her hand around it.

Used to be - before - she insisted on all weapons being locked up securely when not in use, bows included. Trick arrows _especially_ included. 

Now they're repossessing a broken down farm that hasn't been lived in for five years, except for suspected squatters, in a world only starting to return from Wild West lawlessness in this kind of less populated area. They've rehung the front door, but the lock is still bust, most of the downstairs windows are smashed, there are spent shell casings in the barn, and aliens killed her and her kids, so if Laura feels safer carrying a gun right now she's damn well going to. 

And a smaller backup pistol in an ankle holster, three knives, and a widow's bite (since said suspected squatters didn't manage to break into the weapons cache). Which is to say, good luck to anyone coming here looking for trouble.

A quick look out of a window as she takes cover reveals the source of the noise to be the truck Clint drove to the airport three days ago grumbling closer, but Laura doesn't dare take any chances. 

"Dad's back!" she hears Nate shout on the second floor, followed by the sound of Lila and Cooper shushing him. None of them come thundering down the stairs. Instead she catches quiet noises as they follow the emergency plan.

Laura both appreciates how good they are at it and hates the necessity. 

As much as she's grown to love this farm, if they'd had somewhere else - somewhere safer - they could’ve gone then that’s where they’d be right now. As it is, the Avengers Facility is a disaster zone, their few friends either don't have the space or are in the same boat, what family Laura and Clint have left between the two of them - just hell no, and between Laura having been declared dead and Clint's post-Raft lockdown-in-all-ways punishment never having been lifted they've got no access to their safely-stored-in-the-bank money. 

So it's a gun and an emergency plan, or turning back to a life of crime and dragging the kids down with her. Laura's clinging to the first option.

The truck engine gets switched off. Thump of the doors. Boots on the porch; two sets. 

Her finger poised on the trigger.

"It's okay, it's just me," Clint calls out as he pushes open the front door. "And a friend."

His other arm is around Natasha's waist, supporting her as well as guiding her into the house. She looks like hell: drawn, shakey, shadows heavy beneath her eyes, flinching as Laura throws her arms around her and holds on tight. 

Laura should've known better. She instantly backs off, giving Natasha space, although she can't stop the tears from welling up or her hands from shaking.

"Oh my god," she chokes out. Realises she's been saying it on repeat. Forces herself to stop and take a breath.

"...time machine," Clint is saying as he leads Natasha over to the sofa. Rodents gnawed through the side to make a nest in it at some point, but they've long moved on and, with a few blankets thrown over it, it does for now. Laura still wishes they had something better to offer.

"Nat came back," he says. "Steve didn't. Well, sort of did and didn't."

Laura gives zero fucks right now about whatever the hell Captain America has done this time when Natasha is right there in front of her and _alive_.

"I'm just," Laura says, struggling for words and grabbing the bottom of her shirt to stop herself from reaching out again. She twists her fingers into the material. "Thank god you’re - you're okay."

It's tiny, but it's there: Natasha flinches again.

Clint doesn't spot it, already halfway up the stairs and calling out the all clear to the kids.

It doesn't matter. The important thing is that Natasha is _here_. Okay can come later.

#

It’s when night creeps in and Natasha retreats to the spare room instead of following Laura to bed that Laura starts to realise just how far away okay really is.

Clint shows up not long after, having barricaded and booby-trapped and whatever else the top of the stairs. They’ll probably still sleep in shifts anyway, just in case.

“Nat?” he asks, waiting for Laura to shake her head before he crawls into bed next to her. “She still trying to get the kids to go the fuck to sleep?”

Laura almost smiles at the old joke - referring to a picture book that her, Clint, and Natasha had laughed about as perfectly capturing bedtime in the Barton household - but she’s too uneasy.

“They crashed about half an hour ago.” She turns onto her side so she can watch Clint’s face when she tells him, “She’s in the spare room.”

His worry lines crinkle up with concern, so at least it isn’t just her then.

The thing is, the three of them don't share everything all of the time. They're just not like that. All relationships are different and their arrangement has never been an equilateral. 

Laura and Clint found each other back in the day - back when violence was practically her second language and lies her first - supported each other on the road to what they'd laughingly called clean living, moved into the old Barton homestead, and made a house a home. This life is something that they've built together. Natasha has always been a welcome part of it, but while Laura and Clint were figuring out the parenting thing Auntie Nat was figuring herself out, and she went and built her own home. Her own team-family. 

Some days Laura likes the Avengers more than others, but Natasha loves them. Plus they've saved the world once or twice. Laura’s tried not to resent them for taking up more and more of Natasha’s time and it helps that every so often Natasha still comes back. Came back.

Crawling into bed with Laura and Clint after she'd been through something heavy or a particularly tough mission, or when Clint had. Just like during the SHIELD Strike Team Delta days. The three of them able to sleep better watching over each other. Often enough that Laura had insisted on buying a king sized bed.

Sometimes Natasha came back just to visit, to spend time with them and the kids, and then they might have done a bit more than sleeping in, but just sometimes. Laura laughs at depictions of polyamory as constant sexy fun times, as if that’s all a relationship is. In reality, for them it’s more the different ways they can support each other, different things they enjoy sharing with each other, different things they bring… and benefits like having three adults versus three kids when it’s time to go the fuck to sleep.

They've shared a bed more often for emotional reasons than sexy ones, which is the worry. 

Natasha has been dead, after five years of hell, and if that doesn’t fall under the heavy or tough mission criteria that usually has them sharing a bed then Laura doesn’t know what does any more. But Natasha is hiding in the spare room and god knows what Laura is supposed to do about that.

“Clint,” Laura says quietly. “You know something’s not right. With Nat.”

“Maybe.” He sighs. Wraps his hand around hers under the sheets, laces their fingers together, and squeezes gently. “We tried to fix everything, but some things… Can’t fix everything. Can’t save everybody.”

Tony, he doesn’t say. All those like Morgan and Pepper who don’t get to have their loved ones back.

Laura closes her eyes and tucks her forehand against Clint’s shoulder.

“We’ll be okay,” he says, and if only saying could make it so.

#

Some routines return to normal though. While Clint takes the lead on house repairs and Natasha takes over security, Laura takes on the paperwork: revoking death certificates, proving their identities, bank access, ownership of the farm, reinstating her marriage, school registration, and a hundred and one other things to bring her and the kids back to life. She appreciates that half the world’s population are all trying to do the same thing, so sure, she expected queues. What she didn’t anticipate was how stupid and frustrating the processes are.

“Want to swop?” she asks Clint at one point. It’s the first time she makes him laugh, properly laugh, since she came back.

“Me? Paperwork?”

Yeah, it’s not one of his strengths.

Laura’s just frustrated, mostly over the banking. A lot of things can wait, but she would really like access to her money again, thanks. She has a family to feed and a home to fix. It’s almost enough to drive her to other means, but while she’s always had a fear of having nothing, for good reason, that’s not an excuse for some of the things she’s done to get and keep money in the past. She’s not abandoning her hard won principles now.

Natasha, meanwhile, has always operated in the grey area. When Laura is about ready to tear her hair out, Natasha disappears for an afternoon. She returns with cash and groceries, most likely having visited one of her caches but Laura just doesn’t ask. 

“Ice cream!” Nate yells. He’s especially excited about that. 

Natasha flinches from the noise and when he hugs her legs she doesn’t bend down and pick him up like she used to, swing him around like she used to, or blow a raspberry on his tummy like she used to. Instead she freezes, like a deer caught in headlights, and as soon as his little hands set her free she bolts.

It’s not just the once. It’s every time Nate touches her. 

Cooper and Lila have learned not to try. 

Sometimes other things touching her evoke a similar reaction - the blanket on the sofa, a sudden downpour of rain - and she’s started wearing looser clothing. Maybe increased skin sensitivity? But then it’s noises as well, changes in temperature, certain foods… 

Natsha’s always been good at hiding her reactions, but Laura has always been good at noticing things.

Laura hasn’t felt any different since she came back and she hasn’t seen the kids acting any different, despite watching them carefully. She wonders if properly dying and coming back, not just turning to dust and reappearing, has… effects. 

“I could ask Doctor Banner,” Clint offers when she brings it up, while he’s taking a break from replacing the downstairs windows.

“I don’t want her to feel like we’re interfering.” Laura sighs. “You could ask Nat first? Have you two had a chat about all this yet?”

Clint has always been better at having the emotional conversations with Natasha. Possibly a SHIELD partner and Avengers teammate thing. Laura is better with casual physical affection, one of the reasons why not being able to offer a hug, or a kiss on the cheek, or a touch to the elbow, or _anything_, because it seems that would somehow hurt Natasha, is making her feel useless.

“We haven’t really…” He turns the glass of water she’d brought him around in his hands and frowns down at it. “We haven’t been talking much.”

“Since when?”

Clint’s mouth twists up in a painful smile. “Oh, say, about five years. Give or take.”

He’s already started telling Laura about what happened while she was gone. She’s heard all the lowest points and he’s working his way through the rest. But she didn’t know, and hadn’t realised, that he’d isolated himself even from Natasha.

Laura doesn’t condone the violence he doled out, but she can’t say she wouldn’t have done the same. Well, actually, no. She would have gone to Natasha and asked to be aimed, for her violence to be pointed in the best direction, because no one is better than Natsha at seeking every opportunity to achieve a goal. There’s a reason she became the leader of the Avengers when shit hit the fan. Laura is under no illusion that it’s thanks to Nat that they’re un-dusted, for all the work she put in and not only because she literally threw herself off a cliff in pursuit of it.

That’s Laura. She should have realised that Clint wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to see him like that, especially Natasha. Other people’s perceptions of her is not something Laura has ever cared about, except when conning them. 

“Nat doesn’t judge people on their mistakes like that,” she reminds him quietly.

“Yeah. She said that.”

Clint shakes his head and blinks, maybe getting rid of something in his eye or maybe fighting back tears. She doesn’t ask, just leans up to kiss his eyebrow, his nose, his stubbled jaw, until she gets a small smile.

#

Natsha carries most of the shopping bags to the kitchen and Laura follows, ruffling Lila’s hair as she walks behind where her daughter’s curled up on the sofa just because she can. She pauses when instead of complaining about it Lila just continues staring at the screen of her phone.

“What’s up, sweetheart?”

“Just messaging Hailey,” she mumbles. “I’ll go back to sorting the barn out in a sec, promise.”

Being able to get back in touch with her best friend since kindergarten now they’ve got an internet signal again shouldn’t be a reason for Lila to look this miserable.

“You can go over to hers if you like,” Laura says. “I can drive you.”

There’s a pile of things that need fixing and cleaning, and the kids have all been lending a hand. At the moment Cooper and Nate are helping Clint finish replacing the downstairs windows, the pair of them having rarely left him alone since he came back. She doesn’t expect them to help with _everything_ though, Jesus, they’re still just kids. They deserve time to just be kids.

“It’s still the summer break, you could - ”

"No," Lila says flatly. 

She only ever sounds like that when she’s trying not to show that she’s upset.

Thanks to the open plan layout of the ground floor Natasha hears too. She raises an eyebrow at Laura, who lifts her bag of groceries a little - a _can you take care of this_ gesture. Natasha nods, so Laura leaves the bag on the floor and circles around the sofa.

"Alright." She sits down next to Lila and leans in. "What's wrong?"

Lila shrugs. 

"Honey…"

"Just. Hailey didn't get blipped, so." Lila hunches in on herself, curling up even tighter. “She’s not on summer break, because she graduated already. She’s got a job, and an apartment in Des Moines, and she lives with her boyfriend.”

Laura honestly hadn't thought about the age difference between those blipped and not. There’s been too much to try and wrap her head around. The trauma of the people who lived through the five years that her and the kids missed. The people who died because doctors and pilots and bus drivers blipped. The fact that _half of all life in the universe_ was just… wiped out. It’s too big. Too much. She’s only been able to focus on the personal hurt right now. On how her kids were _dead_ for five years. Clint being left alone. Natasha dying to try and bring them back.

“She said,” Lila says, starting to sound choked up, “that she’s glad I’m okay and all, but I don’t think she wants to see me.”

Laura wraps an arm around Lila’s shoulders and pulls her into a hug as she gives in to tears.

“It’s not _fair_, Mom,” she says, hiding her wet face in Laura’s jumper. “There’s these chats. Where all these kids are talking about how they graduated and went to prom, or didn’t have one, and did exams and got jobs and stuff, but how it wasn’t the same. And now we’re back - the kids who got blipped - and things are kinda going back to normal, but they’re never gonna have that. And they don’t get a do-over. They’re saying that it’s not fair, and they don’t blame us or anything - or they _say_ they don’t blame us, but… It’s like they don’t think it’s fair that we’re back. And Hailey - ”

Laura hugs her tight as her words break up into sobbing, pressing kisses to her hair and wondering what the hell she can possibly say beyond murmuring, “Shh, it’s okay. Let it out.” 

“She missed you,” says Natasha. 

Laura glances up at her, where she’s hovering behind the sofa with the abandoned bag of groceries. She’s barely spoken since Clint brought her home and not at all about those five years. She doesn’t look comfortable about doing so now, but Natasha always, _always_ makes an effort for the kids.

“Some people managed to move on, after,” she says. Lila clings to Laura, gradually calming down as Natasha talks and Laura rubs her back. “It sounds like Hailey managed to do that. People coming back after you’ve mourned them… it might hurt her. It might feel like all those wounds that have healed are being torn back open. It doesn’t mean that she didn’t miss you, or that she’s not happy you’re back.”

“I miss her too,” Lila says, sniffling. “I’ve lost my best friend too.”

Laura tilts Lila’s chin up to wipe her face with the hem of Laura’s already damp jumper and it earns her a watery smile.

“Is it like that for you?” Lila asks, turning to Natasha. “Is that why you’re… Why you’re different?”

Natasha looks away.

“I didn’t really move on,” she says. 

No, she wouldn’t have. Natasha isn’t the kind of person who accepts things. She’s the kind that doesn’t give up, even when the odds are impossible. She’s the kind of person who escapes the Red Room. She’s the kind of person who remakes herself, over and over. She bides her time, builds connections and resources, prepares for every opportunity, and then strikes when one presents itself.

Laura doesn’t think whatever isn’t right with Natasha is to do with moving on or not, but there’s something.

#

It’s not so much that eventually one night Clint doesn’t let Natasha go to bed alone so much as when he holds their bedroom door open and raises his eyebrows at her Natasha accepts the invitation like things have never been any different. Laura huffs out a breathy laugh as she follows them, because honestly, the pair of them.

Clint has to nudge her to take the middle of the bed though, reserved for the one who’s gone through something heavy or a rough mission, who the other two both want to comfort and take care of. 

She lies flat on her back, staring up at the ceiling. Clint mirrors her on one side and Laura is a curled up bracket facing her on the other side, careful not to touch.

“You died,” Natasha says eventually to Laura, with just a touch of emphasis on the _you_.

“Me and half the universe,” Laura agrees. “But you _died_.”

Trying not to doubt herself, she reaches out and gently places a hand on Natasha’s arm, just above her elbow, just letting it rest there. 

“Talk to us. Please?”

Natasha goes tense. Inhales. Says, softly, “Everything hurts.”

Laura yanks her hand back even before the horror of that statement sinks in.

“Everything?”

For a long, silent moment it seems like that’s all they’re going to get. Then Clint says - perfectly calm and neutral, and Laura doesn’t know how he manages that - “Tasha?”

“I think I was just used to it,” Natasha says, voice quiet, not looking at either of them. “Hurting. Because there’s always something that hurts in life. But then it just… stopped. I was done. I’d wiped out the red in my ledger, I stopped you from doing something stupid, I helped to save the _universe_. I died for a damn good reason and I was done.”

“You did the stupid,” Clint mutters. 

Laura covers her mouth to stifle the pained noise that wants to escape and swallows down the lump in her throat. Symptoms of thinking about the two of them fighting each other to die and the shape of the dumb jokes they’re already starting to build in the back and forth between them.

“I don’t know where I was, if it was the afterlife or the soul stone or something else entirely, but it was peaceful. Happy. I knew you were all going to be okay, that everything was going to be okay. Then I came back, and everything was loud and bright and violent. And _caring_ about people, worry and the way your heart hurts when - ”

Laura can’t stand it anymore. Has to fumble for Natasha’s hand and hold on, tighter than she means to but Natasha holds on right back.

"You can't tell anyone,” Natasha says. “Especially not Steve."

Laura props herself up using her free arm so she can see Natasha’s face properly. 

"Honey, from what you've said, and from what I've seen, I'm pretty sure Steve didn't come back from seventy years of being pretty much dead in the ice in any way okay," she says gently. "I'm sure he'd understand."

"Exactly. He can't know. He likes to… fix things," Natasha says, the corners of her mouth twisting up into a smile.

Lord, the conversations they've had in this house about what constitutes as 'broken' and how people aren't things to be fixed.

“Um, so this might be a good time,” Clint says, “to tell you that when Steve went back in time? After he returned the stones and got you back, he sort of stayed and lived his life there? And we got an old Steve back. Or a Steve from another timeline or something. According to Banner and Scott.”

“Damn it, Steve,” Natasha sighs.

“That man,” Laura says at practically the same time, rolling her eyes. Then: “No, no we’re not talking about him. We’re talking about you. What can we do?” She looks down at where they’re holding hands and rubs her thumb lightly across Natasha’s skin. “To make it hurt less?”

Natasha finally turns her head to look at her and smiles ruefully. “I don’t know. Re-acclimatisation?” 

“I’m not sorry,” Clint says on Natasha’s other side, shuffling closer and resting his forehead against her shoulder now that tacit permission for touching has been given. “Whatever it is he did to get you back, I would have asked him to do it if I’d known it was possible and I’d ask him to do it again. I fucking missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Laura adds, bringing their joined hands up to her lips and pressing a soft kiss to the back of Natasha’s.

“Sap,” Clint says. An attempt at easing the heightened emotions in the room and filling the space so Natasha doesn’t feel like she has to reply when she’s already bared so much of herself tonight. 

Laura lies back down properly and snuggles closer to Natasha, letting go of her hand so she can wrap her arm around Natasha’s waist. Clint does the same from the other side, warm skin against Laura's where their arms are tucked together feeling the rise and fall as Natasha breathes. Reassurance for each other that they’re all here.

“In that place,” Natasha says, “I didn’t know what missing was, but before that. You both - ” Natasha closes her eyes. “Long five years.”

“Nat - ” Clint starts what sounds like an apology, pulling back, but Nat stretches a hand up to cup the back of his head and keep him close.

“Don’t.”

“Okay,” he says, sighing and settling back down. “We’re going to be okay.”

The important thing is that they’re here.


End file.
